Testing equipment may be used to measure characteristics of various devices under test (DUTs). Specifically, the testing equipment may be communicatively coupled with the DUT to record or measure various signals within or exported by the DUT. For example, sockets of the testing equipment may be coupled with a number of interconnects of the DUT such as a ball grid array (BGA), which may include a plurality of solder balls arranged in an array.
In legacy test equipment, the sockets may include, for example, a spring-loaded pin socket, a stamp pin socket, or an elastomer socket. The sockets may be used as a temporary interface between the DUT and the test equipment for high volume product testing. However, the additional interconnect provided by this socket may result in one or both of two adverse impacts. The first adverse impact may include signal integrity degradation, mainly induced by added contact pin height and the mechanism for holding such long pins in place. That is, reduction of signal integrity between the DUT and the test equipment. The second adverse impact may include deviation from the product native operation configuration. In other words, the DUT may not be operating in the same manner, or with the same connections, as it would operate in normal (non-test) use.